ABSTRACT
Plato's apprehensions about music cluster around two principal issues, both of which are reproduced virtually every time a controversy concerning youth culture appears. Plato fears that unsanctioned music will instill a thirst for liberty. Such music, he claims, encourages the populace to value its own judgments and to resist authority, whether familial or governmental. As he puts it most direly in the Republic, "a change to a new type of music is something to beware of as a hazard of all our fortunes. Plato tolerates music only when it serves as a vehicle toward some hegemonic political end. Left to its own devices, music's ability to appeal to the body will wreak havoc on society. Like Plato or Augustine, the Left has often tried to harness music and channel its energies toward pragmatic ends—most obviously in pseudo-folk styles, which work by implying an unmediated link with traditional roots while minimizing the interference of the music itself.
